The Unbearable Madness Of Poetry

"Love in the Asylum"--my favorite poem by Dylan Thomas--is possibly the most lucid and poetic account of the unbearable madness of poetry creation. I cannot help thinking that the "girl mad as birds" that "raves at her will/on the madhouse boards" and in whose arms the poet suffers "the first vision that set fire to the stars" is a marvelous metaphor for his Muse and the fury of writing. I am deeply touched by this kind of madness. I too crave for a spark of that insanity in my poems.




Comments

  1. C. Margery KempeMarch 22, 2011 at 2:26 PM

    I have a great love too for Thomas' prose which I think is not reckoned highly enough. I don't really celebrate Xmas, but I do always listen to A Child's Christmas in Wales. I remember my first reading of "Fern Hill" and how I knew that loss of halcyon days though I was only a teenager myself. I can listen to him all day :-)

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  2. John Claude SmithMarch 22, 2011 at 3:39 PM

    I don't know his work well, but that sampling of lines above makes me want to seek it out. I also agree: that spark of insanity imbues my best work, be it mostly fiction. It's necessary for full immersion in the story, the characters, the words, a kind of letting go, giving in to one's Mad Muse, perhaps...

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